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10 THE TECHNIQUES OF SOVIET PROPAGANDA (a) The press er There are few publications in the world, even including some of the ostensibly conservative, into which the tentacles of the Soviet appara- tus do not reach. The primary task of the auxiliary in this medium —— is manipulation of the editor, or, if this is not feasible, the reporters, without the editor's knowledge. Broad generalizations, such es this paper is “conservative,” or that “Catholic,” are no longer ade- quate to define its policy vis-a-vis Moscow. The managing editor may actually be unaware that his newspaper has been “permeated.” ‘he most heavily infiltrated departments are international news and commentary, and book and fim reviews. Reviewers have an especially important propaganda role. By their favorable appraisals many readers will be influenced to attend film showings and read books favorable to the Soviet line, while ignoring others less biased, because of unfavorable reviews or the “silent treatment.” An effective Soviet technique for manipulation of the free world — reas is “letter brigades.” Auxiliaries representing themselves as ‘devoted readers” write quantities of outraged letters when a » paper has printed something anti-Communist, and messages of spproval when it a8 favored some concession to Moscow, or Peiping. Since the anti- Communist community is far less effectively organized, the prepon- derance of correspondence received from the auxiliaries exerts a sig- nificant influence on the policy of newspapers whose editors honestly believe they “must be attuned to their readers.” Submarines in the ocean of the press.—A remarkable disclosure is found in Arthur Koestler’s confession, published in his book, “The God That Failed.” He relates how, as a young journalist employed by o large conservative newspaper, he went one day to offer his enthusiastic adherence to the Communist Party. He be- lieved this membership would entail resignation from his felicitous but “counter-revolutionary” position to serve the publications of the Communist Party, regardless of salary. His surprise can be imagined when he was told, by the “aparatchik” who received him, that this wes a childish impulse; that he would serve the cause far better by staying with the conservative newspaper, carefully concealing his Communist affiliation while spying and reporting to the party all that occurred in the editor’s office and at the same time, attempting to subvert the newspaper’s policy to favor Moscow. The famous American writer, Whittaker Chambers, who publicly directed an influential and openly pro-Communist literary review, was ordered by the CP to abandon this employment to work as a “submarine” in the conservative, anti-Communist press. These ex- amples illustrate the preference of the “apparatus” for activity in the shadows. . Following the submission of several Eastern European countries to Communist domination, many observers were amazed to note that influential positions in the revolutionary regime were filled by those who had formerly been prominent in anti-Communist circles. The solution to the mystery was simple, These chameleons were creatures who, long before, bad been insinuated by the Communist apparatus into the bourgeois press, including even such organs of the extreme ight as the Bulgarian Fascist newspaper Slova. . n Lithuania, the former chief editor of the newspaper Laikas em- ployed the underground agent Guzevicius, who came to solicit work See eee | cyto